The world wide network of computers commonly known as the "Internet" has grown rapidly over the last several years. Much of this growth has been driven by the increase in popularity of the World Wide Web ("WWW" or "Web"). The WWW is a collection of files written using HyperText Markup Language (HTML), commonly referred to as "Web pages." HTML files may be easily configured and created by users and accessed and displayed using specialized applications known as Web browsers, which allow a user to access and view HTML files using a graphical user interface.
Servers hosting HTML files can communicate using the HyperText Transfer Protocol ("HTTP"). HTTP is a communication protocol that provides user access to files (which can be in different formats such as text, graphics, images, sound, video, etc.) written using the HTML page description language. HTML provides basic document formatting functions and allows the developer of the HTML page to specify communication links to other servers and files. Use of an HTML-compliant browser on a client workstation involves specification of a link via a Uniform Resource Locator address or "URL". Upon such specification, the browser makes a "TCP/IP" request to the server address identified by the link and receives a Web page in return. The browser executing on the client workstation interprets the HTML file that it has received and displays the Web page to the user of the client workstation.
The browser renders the Web page by interpreting HTML tags, which are embedded control information that indicates to a browser when certain action should be taken. For example, a tag may indicate to the browser: (1) that a graphics file should be retrieved and displayed at a particular location on the screen; (2) that the text following the HTML tag should be centered, bolded, or otherwise formatted; (3) that the background of the Web page should be shaded or have a particular pattern; or (4) that a different HTML file should be loaded and displayed in place of the HTML the file the browser in currently displaying.
The relative ease with which information may be collected, organized, and displayed to users throughout the world has made HTML files a popular way of disseminating information in a networked environment. For example, a broad range of companies now use internal collections of HTML files, which are commonly known as "Intranets." However, while HTML files excel at displaying and disseminating information to one or more groups of networked users, they do not allow a group of users to collaboratively share information in order to work on a common project. For example, although a collection of HTML files may allow separate users to publish information for consumption by one or more other members of a project team, such a collection of files does not does not facilitate a two-way exchange of information and project data between team members. For example, a team member viewing another team member's HTML file cannot add new comments or files to the file being viewed.